Your Japanese word of the week is...

... gonna be hard, since it'll be the last one of '08 heh..... anyway, it's

"-nakereba naranai"

The dash represents any verb you'd like to put in there (well, some require slight conjugation changes) or, as I found out, adjectives...... let's try this one....

"Ikenakereba naranai"

Iku = to go

Ikenai = to not go/can't go

-kereba = ones of the ways of saying "if"

Ikenakereba = If one does not go

naru = to become (I mentioned this before I think)

naranai = can't/won't become

So "Ikenakereba naranai" is, essentially, "If one doesn't go, nothing will come out of it". Or, in a manner that's slightly easier to understand, "One can't NOT go". Or, in a manner that's even easier to understand, "One MUST go".

Yes, you read that right. It's a double negative expressing just how important something is.

The reason it's so hard to understand is that, in English, it's been taught for so long that double negatives are usually a grammatical no-no that when you hear it for the first (and, like, 30th) time, deciphering it in your head takes so long that whatever you should've been doing has already passed.

Anyways, feel free to digest that over the New Year...... I know I have been for the past, like, 6 months haha.....

Besides that, since the last time I wrote, quite a bit has happened.

There was a Shiramizu year end party.

I visited the Meiji-Jingu Shrine (again) with some friends.

And I saw the Shinjuku Illuminations, one of many in and around Tokyo.

And then just meeting up with lots of friends I haven't seen in a while.

Tonight it'll be New Year's in Tokyo so hopefully I'll have a story as interesting as the one last year........ perhaps more heh...

And on January 2-4, I'll be in Kyoto.

So I hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year's and I'll catch you in '09!

-Lawrence

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"yasumi" which means a "rest" or "break". But it can also means the same thing over a longer period of time, like a "holiday". In my case, technically, it lasts til January 8th.

So what does one do with holidays in Tokyo?? Everything, of course heh.......

I know quite a few people going home for the holidays so I've been running around seeing them before they leave. There's also been these year end parties (bonenkai) that I've been going to as well. But, so far, the furthest I've gone is to Yokohama on Monday.

Technically I did come here last year but this time, aside from Chinatown, I did different things. First off, I actually went up that "tallest building in Tokyo", the Landmark tower. I have to admit though, I found it rather uninteresting. Aside from an elevator that does 750m/min (45km/h), the view out just didn't seem that good.

I find high views of Tokyo to be clogged with buildings and while buildings can be interesting, it's almost over-saturated with them so it's hard to pick out anything interesting to see. Added to that the fact that it's hard to find a day with enough clarity (weather-wise or pollution-wise) to see really very far (like Mt. Fuji) and the Landmark tower's 69th floor quickly became a brief walk-around.

The tower also has a Museum of Industrial Science on the first floor but, as this is Japan, it's closed on Mondays.... I would've rather gone to that.......

After that, we (I went with Carl and Amy, the current Shiramizu Interns) made out way to Chinatown. And just like last year, there it was in all its overly-Chinese glory. One thing I didn't notice last time is that if you go in through the main entrance, the very first building you hit is a Starbucks........ some things just never change heh......

Chinatown is also something that never changes...... like I said last year, Yokohama's Chinatown is as much as visual attraction as anything else, so it's adorned with lots of stuff that people associate with China. Dragons, temples burning incense, a giant mural of Sun Wukong from Journey to the West, it's all there.

As is this. A Hello Kitty dressed as a panda posing like a maneki neko (those white cats with raise paws that supposedly bring luck to their owners).

Despite that, it's fun to just walk around and have a bit of food from the street vendors and whatnot, especially if you live in the area. We don't, but we had a rather good lunch at a Chinese restaurant and then went on our merry way.

We made out way out of Chinatown and decided to head towards Yokohama Foreign General Cemetary, which started in 1854 when Commodore Perry returned to Japan a year after he arrived in his famous black ships. On his return, a sailor died during negotiations and Commodore Perry request a piece of Japanese land to bury the sailor at. And thus began the foreign cemetary wherein now rest many famous and historical foreigners, as well as many who died in the Pacific theatre of WWII.

From there, it's a walk downhill to the sea-side Harbour View Park. While this would normally be great with a view across the inlet to Tokyo, by this time it was getting a bit dim and extraordinarily windy. We left the park and headed for Yamashita park which is quite literally across the street and runs for a large city block parallel to the shore. Nothing to do there either though heh......

We decided then to call it a night and headed for the train.

That would be Carl and Amy on the right, walking under a very neatly trimmed tree-cum-awning...

In the meantime, I hope every has a safe and fun Christmas and New Year's!

Or, as the Japanese say, "Me-rii Ku-ri-su-ma-su" and "Yoi otoshi o"!

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"bokeru" which means "to blur/fade". It can be used in two ways, one being the actual blurring of something (like an image) and the other being someone who's senile or otherwise got a fuzzy mind. You can also use it in a derogatory way by calling someone a "boke" (not bohk, but bo-keh).

This word entered the photography world for a similar reason and so "bokeh" describes the blurring of an image's foreground or background with certain camera lenses. It's actually rather complicated to explain why it happens (it has to do with the aperture of the lens and depth of field) but it essentially allows the photographer to blur all the things in front or behind of the object in focus in order to minimize their distraction. It's something I've always noticed in pictures but never knew the name for or how to achieve.

I should note that I bring all this up since I've decided, since I don't currently have a car to waste all my money on, to take up photography. It started in July when I basically played photographer for two weeks to help with Seiritsu's Japan Experience! program. After that, a few weeks ago, at the Tokyo Automotive Games show, I realized I wasn't getting the pictures I wanted.

So, after nearly an entire week of constantly reading camera reviews, learning the terminology, and dissecting the physics behind light, I found a nice guy on Tokyo Craigslist to sell me his DSLR stuff. It was a fairly decent deal including a 6-month old Sony α300, a 16gb CF card, a Lowepro bag, and a mid-telephoto in the shape of a Minolta 70-210mm, affectionately known as the "Beercan". All for cheaper than the cost of a new camera.

Some might scoff at the fact that it's not a Canon or a Nikon, but for now, I'm quite sure I can't tell the difference. I can, however, tell a difference in price...

Anyways, back to the bokeh...

I suppose it's a bit hard to see in a small picture (I resized it for the sake of the internet), but the bike and the tree in the foreground are conveniently blurred to (hopefully) draw the viewer's eyes to the Honda logo.

Of course, pictures aren't pictures without post-processing and I suppose at some point I should learn all of it. But for now, I just shoot JPEG's and see where it goes. Black and white seems to be popular though, and that's easy enough to do......

Anyways, I took these two pics just a few hours ago when I went to a nearby park to take random pictures. I took a lot and many didn't turn out, but what with Christmas lights strewn all over Tokyo, travel plans to Kyoto, the Tokyo Auto Salon, a trip to Hong Kong, and blasting across Japan on the the Bullet Train all coming in the first half of 2009, I'm sure I'll have more chances to really sort it out.

Oh also, this past Sunday I went to the 36th Japan Cup Karatedo, which is essentially the highest level national karate competition in Japan. Special thanks to Anna for holding my program for me =P.......

Double thanks to her catching this picture...

"Use the Force, Luke" =P....

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"omou" which means to "think". "Omoimasu" is one of the conjugated forms of the word and, just like English, you can also use it when you're not totally sure of something; "Lions don't eat humans.... I think..." or "I think tar & feathering people should still be a viable punishment..." And while I'm quite sure of the former and do consider the latter to be quite hilarious, there are a bunch of other things I've been thinking about...

Water on one of Saturn's moons

I understand why we're always looking into space. I understand the desire to find water on other intra-solar system objects. I would even venture to say that, even with nearly impossible odds, I understand that the universe is so vast that there is a possibility of life.

However, what I never understood was why we limit ourselves to finding only water. The link above goes to a Popular Science page about finding evidence of water on Saturn's moon Enceladus and it says that "[...] water is a fundamental requirement for life." And while I do think that having water certainly makes the possibility of life greater, I also think that just because all the lifeforms that we know of require water, why does that mean all other forms of life must require water as well??

There are lots of interesting theories behind abiogenesis (the theory of the origin of life), but they're all based on life that we know. But couldn't life that we don't know be based on a method we've yet to see??

Wheeeeeee....

It's not really as impossible as it seems. Floating something just requires an object to be less desnse than the fluid/gas it's in. Helium floats in air. Humans float particularly well in the Dead Sea.

In this case, the chemical in the tank is sulfur hexaflouride (SF₆) which is 5 times as dense as air. So something like an aluminum foil boat that normally "sinks" in air will float in a tank of SF₆. And you can see that it follows the same physical principles since scooping the gas into the boat makes the boat heavier and thus causes it to sink. It's just rather convenient that it's also transparent.

It's also, apparently, safe enough that you can inhale it to change your voice, like you would with helium. Except that because it's more dense, it'll make your voice deeper.

Now we just have to wait for a swimming pool filled with SF₆, because that would just be awesome.....

What the hell...??

Some pretty weird stuff happens in Japan...

I should say, before you read the rest of this, that Japan is not unsafe. On the contrary, I feel less on-guard walking around at night than I do in downtown Vancouver at night. But there is a hidden amount of extremism in Japanese culture and perhaps that has something to do with it. I also think that the much larger population means even if the chances are slim of a certain event happening, it's more likely to happen here... that and the oft commented on stress levels of Japanese people...

79-year old woman stabs 2 - said she was homeless and sought to be "in the care" of the police

Kansai University graduate gets 3-yrs for marijuana trafficking - Japanese officials are treating cannabis as the new plague; lots of arrests, lots of multi-year prison sentences, especially among university students

High-school girl stabs mother - said her mother didn't help around the house and thought the world would be better off without her

Man gets 5-yrs for throwing 3-yr old from pedestrian overpass - intellectual disability hindered his ability to differentiate right from wrong, but not his ability "[...] to foresee the boy would die if thrown"

14-yr old girl sets fire to own house - said she was angry...

Man stabs girlfriend over break-up; jumps off hotel - 22-yr old man stabs his 17-yr old girlfriend 10 times after she breaks up with him, proceeds to jump out of 7th floor of the hotel they're in, survives with a fractured elbow (ONLY?!?)

The only other thing I'd like to say is that the people accused almost always seem to admit to a crime. Perhaps something gets lost in the translation, but when a man was asked why he hid his dead father's body for 2 years, he admitted that "he wanted to keep collecting the pension"....

Deserves to be tar & feathered

In Southern California, a Ford dealership manager took out a radio ad in which he proceeded to lash out at the Japanese car industry and the people who buy Japanese cars. He accuses people of not supporting the economy and calls Japanese cars "[...] rice ready, not road ready", whatever the hell that means.....

These kind of comments really get me.

First off, people don't buy Japanese cars for the sake of buying them. They buy them because they're better designed, better built, and competitively priced. The Big 3 are begging for money because for too long they've sold cars that fell apart and looked awful. Build good cars and they will come, as evidenced by the Ford F-150 which sells in droves.

Secondly, lots of Japanese cars sold in America are built IN America, by Americans. Buying those cars supports the people who make them. A lot of these cars are good quality not because of where they're built or who builds them, but how the company manages the production. Lots of Toyota plants in America, for example, win JD Powers Initial Quality awards.

Lastly, while the cars are a problem, the United Auto Workers union doesn't help the Big 3. A lot of their problems are tied down to deals they've worked out with the UAW that's draining their accounts. The Japanese manufacturers are union resistant and, as it turns out, their workers are actually getting paid more when bonuses and overtime are taken into account.

To be fair, American cars of late have been improving. I can name lots of cars from GM, Chrysler, and Ford that I like. I can't, however, name lots that I would spend my money on. The worst is changing the stigma of "American" cars. Lots of people still choose because of the badge, whether it's not buying a great car from an unwanted brand or buying an atrocious wreck from a desired name.

But ultimately, that this guy's business is going down the drains has nothing to do with the import car industry. All the companies are experiencing lower sales, not just American ones. Toyota's cutting production. Honda's even pulled out of Formula 1. It's just that the American manufacturers have been running out of money for so long that the economy is now just twisting the knife even more.

People have a right to be upset if their job is threatened, but that guy.......... spewing racist, ignorant comments is not where to start. Bring on the feathers, I think... =P

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"mata", which is often used as "again". So you might hear someone say "mata taberu?" (Eating again?) if you suggest dessert after a really heavy meal. Or a common way of saying goodbye "ja mata" as in, "[See you] again". Or even "mata desu ka" for "More?".

But I think the most fitting one for the following picture is "mata ka yo~?" meaning "Not again?!", "ka" because it's a question and "yo" being a sound added for emphasis like you'd find in Cantonese.


Yes...... do it at home, indeed......

Just in time for the holiday season. Although the Japanese don't celebrate Christmas or even the New Year with any type of extravagant party, a really popular function is the "bonenkai", which is a year-end party, be it for work or a club or anything. Both dojo's I'm training at are having separate bonenkai's as is the school (probably). As expected, imbibing is rampant....

This image was actually posted on an English site for Japanese news and sparked comments about the choice of English as the alternate language, the sign assuming that English-speaking foreigners contribute heavily to the drunken behaviour. I find that a little over-reactionary since leaving out any foreign language doesn't account for the percentage of non-Japanese "not doing it at home" but printing it in every single language leaves no space for a picture of THE SAME OLD MAN awash in the displeasure of being around a social deviant.....

A better comment than that, however, was someone commenting on the fact that it says "Please". as if this was some option statement to be heeded, not some kind of directive to be followed (indeed, it's written in a much more forceful manner in Japanese).

The best, however, was a comment saying how the poster seems to expect everyone to celebrate all their year-end festivities at home...... by themselves......

At any rate, I just thought you might get as good a laugh as I did.......

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"choden" which means "super electric" and refers to what we'd call a superconductor. I bring this up because I just got back from looking at some of the interesting displays outside the Museum of Maritime Science in Odaiba. I didn't go inside but one of the displays there was of a superconducting electromagnetic ship propulsion system, also known as magneto-hydrodynamic drive, which involves applying a magnetic field to a conducting fluid (seawater in this case) to propel a ship. The Mitsubishi Group actually built a working prototype (the first in the world) called the Yamato1 and the engine (on the right) is on display outside the museum.

Of course, as much as I'm intrigued by technology, I didn't travel across the Rainbow Bridge and all the way to Odaiba just to see what is essentially a gigantic water squirter. No, instead, I went for the 2008 Tokyo Automotive Games.

But before that, a bit of info on Odaiba. Odaiba is a large artificial island in Tokyo Bay, one of 6 originally built 1853 to defend Tokyo (nee Edo) from intruders. In the early 1990s, right before the Japanese economic bubble burst, Odaiba was slated to be developed as a showcase for futuristic residential living and commericial buildings.

Then everyone ran out of money, leaving Odaiba full of plans but empty of anything substantial.

In the late 90's, new investors started coming in and turned it into the tourist and general leisure area it now is. And indeed, there are some really cool things there like the Fuji TV headquarters (with it's odd spherical add-on), the Miraikan Museum which showcases emerging science and innovation, the Rainbow Bridge, a replica Statue of Liberty, and plenty of shopping malls, one of which has two floors of "Little Hong Kong" serving all that Hong Kong cuisine has to offer.

But I went for the Automotive Games show, which is kind of like a mid-level car/bike show. Taking place in a huge parking lot, there were lots of car and bike parts vendors, RC car racing, some stunt riding shows, Moto1 (dirtbike racing), FMX (dirtbike jumping), Drift shows, and Vespa racing (seriously!).

It wasn't anything amazing but there was a large variety of stuff going on and, since there is no Tokyo Motor Show, it let me get my fix of turbos, powerslides, and tire smoke.

And, as it happens sometimes with shows like these, the absolute best car of the day wasn't even part of the show- I found it in the parking lot. A Ferrari F40!!









Oh, and this..... "Ok son, get in there while I take a picture of you with the girls..."

OH!!! I almost forgot.......... there were Stormtroopers........

World Championship Pics...

Yay pictures! Thanks to Carl (the current Shiramizu intern) and Amy (his fiance, professional photographer, and "unofficial" intern) for the great pics. Especially since I didn't have time to take them from the floor.....

Team Japan's Matsuhisa Ko (red) does his part for the WKF ad.
And he's a Wadokai member!

R. Aghayev (AZE, red) dodges a punch from S. Margaritopoulos (GRE) in the Men's Open Finals.
Aghayev followed with a take-down...

Richard (L) and me looking busy...
I mean.... being busy.... "looking" concerned =P...

K. Kneuhmann (GER, red) and N. Fujiwara (JPN, blue) in the Women's -53kg Finals.
Imagine this happening in a split second and you being the judge to decide who scored the best technique...

Women's -60kg podium.
1st - M. Sobol (RUS)
2nd - N. Varasteh (CAN)
3rd - K. Strika (SRB)
3rd - V. Dogan (TUR)

Men's -70kg podium
1st - R. Aghayev (AZE)
2nd - T. Moussa (EGY)
3rd - S. Nagaki (JPN)
3rd - S. Baghbani (CAN)

We didn't get any medals, so we settled for a picture with two of the nice ladies who handed the medals out... that's sort of the same, isn't it?? haha...

19th WKF World Championships in Tokyo... Part 2

[Note: Still need a bit of time for the pics.]

By the way, be sure to check out all the results here. And a very special congratulations to Canadians Saeed Baghbani (3rd place, Men's Individual Kumite, -70kg) and Nassim Varasteh (2nd place, Women's Individual Kumite, -60kg).

Sunday
After sleeping some 5hrs, it was back to the Budokan for another day of the tournament.

This time around, with a better understanding of what's going on, I got straight to work organizing the rings. I got a hold of all the tournament ladders so I knew what fights were running and waiting to be run and, along with Richard, we set about making sure the rings run smoothly. Eventually, we split up and I took rings 1 and 2 while Richard took 3 and 4.

The work mainly consisted of making sure all the teams were sat on the correct side of the ring and in the order they were to fight in. When they were done, I'd make sure they'd keep moving either to their new seat position for their next fight or to wait outside whether they lost or just had to wait for the next batch of fights.

As expected, some of the coaches and competitors were rather reluctant to move, sometimes because they thought it was bothersome that they had to move all the time or because they wanted to stay to watch the fights. I found the best way to deal with them was to politely ask them and explain that the next group of fighters were coming. Eventually, they started to recognize me and, at times visibly reluctantly, would heed my requests and move out of the way.

Oh, and I also got myself a walkie-talkie with an earpiece- just like a secret agent!! Richard had let me in on his little secret about dealing with non-compliant coaches by putting his hand on the earpiece and pretending like the head table was telling him to tell the coach to clear the area. Sneaky haha......

Famous People
Being a world championship, it's expected that there are a lot of rather famous or important karate athletes, coaches, and instructors there. And working the floor, I had the privilege of meeting, talking briefly with, or at least seeing many of them.

People like:

Robbie Smith Sensei, New Zealand- Widely regarded as one of the best Wadokai instructors not currently teaching in Japan, if not just one of the best, period. Very well respected and very courteous. Funny too, as I found in the farewell party.

Ticky Donovan, England- David 'Ticky' Donovan is perhaps the most famous karate coach and former competitor to come out of England. Aside from winning a world championship in 1976, he led the British team to 5 consecutive world titles in '82, '84, '86, '88, and '90.

Manuel Monzon, Canada- Team Canada Head Coach, he led Saeed and Nassim to their respective 3rd and 2nd place finishes. He's also an all-around nice guy who was very kind during the tournament, never bothered by my constant ushering of competitors. He was even nicer at the party, where we chatted some more. Perhaps I'll compete under him for Canada someday....... perhaps haha....... Oh, and I didn't get a chance to talk to Saeed, but I did meet Nassim, who's a happy, energetic, and driven girl from Toronto.

John Fonseca and Elisa Fonseca Au, USA- Independently both well-established karate champions in their own right, they recently married to form some kind of undefeatable marital karate superpower. Elisa came in 2nd in Women's Individual Kumite, +60kg.

Team Hong Kong China and Team Macau
"Wow, you speak Chinese?!?!"................ I suppose this is a legitimate shock since we ~are~ all in a foreign country. And they were used to dealing with the Japanese in English. And they thought I was Japanese. And probably a bunch of other reasons....... I was shocked too- that I could still remember how to speak it haha.....

But really, I was quite happy that I could help those teams out in Cantonese, especially since they had some rather important concerns like finding one of their athlete's ID cards.

And actually, at the farewell party, I got to chatting with the chairman of the Karatedo Federation of Hong Kong China. He mentioned there isn't any Wado-ryu in Hong Kong but I intend on staying in touch and visiting him next year when I'm in HK. Maybe there'll be something I can do about helping the Wadokai expand =).....

Farewell Party
Held in a giant banquet hall of a hotel in Shinagawa, it was a rather fantastic party. I mean, the president of the French karate association bought 100 bottles of champagne for everyone, probably because they did so well (second only to Japan in terms of medal rankings). This, in addition to the seemingly endless supply of other drinks...

Then there was the buffet, which was enormous!! I mean, lots and lots and lots of food. Like, "enough smoked salmon to choke a killer whale" lots............. I ate a lot........

They also had a taiko drumming group give a performance, which was one of the best taiko performances I've seen.

Towards the last half of the evening, Richard and I took it upon ourselves to hand out the tournament results. We figured it would be a good way to meet various athletes and coaches as well as pacify quite a few people upset by the fact that it took a long time to print and compile over 100 copies of the results (not just the finalist, but the entire tournament ladder results for all the divisions), many of whom I had to deal with.

But in the end, it was great. We just walked around, was happy and congenial, shook their hands, and just tried to help everyone enjoy their what little time they had left in Japan.


By the time I got home Sunday night at 11pm, I was exhausted from having volunteered for nearly 22hrs over two days. But it was a great experience to have been at the world championship, especially being able to be at the front table and be a part of all of it. There was much to learn from how the best athletes warm-up, train, and compete to how a tournament of this calibre needs to be run to what kind of spirit it takes to win.

And......... it's a World Championship. How many times would I get to say that I've gone?? =)

Your Japanese word of the week is...

[Note: I'm still sorting the pics. I'll put them in/put up a new post when I'm done.]

"hashafukukatsu" which, in all its complicated-kanji-ness, is the Japanese equivalent of "repechage". Repechage (lit. re-fishing) is French for "rescue " or "save" and is a practice in sports that allows competitors who have been eliminated from the tournament ladder to compete for a separate spot.

In the case of karate, it would be something like competing for 3rd place if you got knocked out of the semi-finals and can extend all the way back to the very first round that the eventual 1st place competitor fought in. It's arranged such that the first and second competitors who lost will have a match and the winner fights the one who lost the following round, the winner of which fights the one who lost the fourth round, etc.

So, technically, one can lose in the first round to the gold medalist and still be in for a chance for bronze, provided you prove your worth by defeating all the other competitors the gold medalist beat on his/her way to the top spot.

"Hashafukukatsu" is the Japanese word for such a process and includes the word for "revenge (fukushuu)" in it.

And why would I bother explaining all of this?? Well because this past Nov 13-16 was the 19th WKF World Karate Championships at the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo. It's been 31 years since the biennial World Championships were held in Tokyo so it was quite an event.

I volunteered on the last two days of the event which was great but unfortunate because all the events that I liked most (kata, team kata, and team kumite) were run on the first two days. Despite that, I got ring side seats to some very exciting individual kumite matches between some of the best karate athletes in the world.

What follows are a couple of anecdotes about my time there.

Saturday
Up at 6:30 like any other workday and at the Budokan by 8am. I get my staff ID card (they've named me LIANG in katakana- I hastily write my first name in cuz there's nothing worse than people shouting LIANG at me all day, though one staff member still did it) and a really nice staff jacket and head off to do......... whatever it is they're getting me to do.

Turns out Richard (who volunteered there all 4 days) has got me helping out with the head table, where the WKF officials are running the show. I meet Mr. Esteban Perez, head of the WKF Organizing Committee and official "guy who runs everything".

For the better part of the morning, I felt particularly useful running around passing on orders and making sure the results are sent to the press room every 15 minutes (after a few times though, I passed this job on to some other volunteers). From about 11am onwards though, I started to help organize the competitors as they waited their turn in their rings.

That I did for most of the day and it involved a lot of "firm yet polite" speaking to many different coaches and competitors. I also had to help keep the area in front of the head table clear, so it was more "firm yet polite" speaking with people who had barged in. Lastly, the volunteers (and the hired security) eventually realised I wasn't Japanese, so I was called over to deal with a lot of the non-Japanese people who poked their head through the curtains set up around the perimeter of the competition area.

During the day, I could take a few minutes here and there to just stand and watch the fights from ring side and that was amazing. Perhaps I shouldn't be that surprised though, considering it was a world-class event with the top competitors from over 100 countries. The day ended off with all the final matches of each division run that day, which was............. well, I'll get to that.....

After all that, I headed off to dinner with Richard, Arakawa Sensei, Oliva Sensei (whom I mentioned in the previous post), Mrs. Oliva Sensei, and a few friends of Richard's.

Miscellaneous notes

They're SO FAST
Nowadays, kumite has evolved to the point that the distinction between styles has all but disappeared and has led some to start calling it "sport karate" vs "traditional karate". What I mean is that while one use to be able to tell one karate style from another based on how they fought, it been developed and honed to the point where all the athletes now fight the same way because that is that most effective way. Kata, on the other hand, still maintains its distinct, style-specific visual form and kata from one style is easily distinguishable from another style's kata.

It's easy to make the argument that kumite competitors need only to be exceptional athletes because of its focus on speed, power, and flexibility. And while some kata competitors can be successful based only upon athleticism, those who can demonstrate the essence of their style and a true function to their movements define that which is what I believe to be the core of martial arts.

Having said that, there's no question that the fighters I watched were extremely athletic. Their movement speeds and reactions were unbelievable at times. Coupled with the strict officiating of the WKF Judges, the way the athletes scored points was utterly amazing....

Final Rounds
... except in the final rounds. On Saturday, all the finals were actually rather boring, with many of the fights running the entire time limit (2:00 for women's, 3:00 for men's) with nothing but the fighters circling each other.

Understandably, everyone wants to win a world championship so no one is ready to risk going first, making a mistake, and letting their opponent score with a counterattack. But, at the same time, watching only the final match gives almost no indication of how good the athletes are.

Watching the final few rounds of eliminations as well as the repechage are often more exciting...

Rafael Aghayev (AZE)
... except when it came to this man. Aghayev is one of the best fighters in the world and finished the tournament with TWO gold medals- Men's Individual Kumite Open and Men's Individual Kumite -70kg.

Not only was he exciting to watch, he was fearless in his matches and not afraid of going on the offensive if the opportunity arose even in the finals. And when he did, he was consistently faster and sharper than his opponent to make sure he got the point he was going for.

But the most amazing thing was that the Azerbaijani was only about my height, which only serves to underscore how effective his fighting is to defeat opponents particularly in the Open division, where there is no weight category and he had to make his way past fighters sometimes 7 or 8 inches taller than him.

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"bougyo" which means "self-defense". And that was only a small part of the kumite seminar I took part in in past Sunday.

As you may know, this weekend is the World Karate Federation's (WKF) World Championships and, for the first time in 31 years, it is being held in Tokyo. I'm volunteering on Saturday and Sunday (they signed me up as a translator!!........) so it'll be a great experience to watch, up close, the best of the best from all over the world.

But before all this, Richard organized a seminar with Antonio Oliva Sensei, who is a 5-time Spanish National Karate Champion and is now an internationally renowned WKF kumite coach, traveling to as many as 25 different countries every year to teach his approach to winning.

With Oliva Sensei was two competitors that he trained, a Latvian 17-yr old named Kalvis Kalnins (a WKF Junior World Champion) and Adam Kovacs, a Hungarian who's going to compete this weekend. The seminar was divided up into two sessions, with the 9:30am-1pm session for kids and a 2-5:30pm adult session.

The kids session was focused mainly on drills- improving their movement, leg/hand speed, and timing. One oft uttered criticism of the Japanese training method is that it's overly repetitive and predictable, with drills essentially lining up all the students and having them do one move countless number of times- exactly how sparring matches DON'T happen.

The exercises done at the seminar, however, had a random variable thrown in which mean the kids were learning how to adapt to the situation as well as sharpening their reflexes without losing focus of what they're supposed to be practicing.

I had gone to the seminar with two of my students from the high school, so I spent the morning running the drills with them and Carl (the current intern).

After a short lunch, the adult session started which had a different set of drills interspersed with short lectures.

The one thing that Oliva Sensei has really done over his 30+ years of experience is to essentially take something seemingly random and analyze it scientifically. He explained to us what is required to win matches by taking into account who the fighter is, who the judges are, where in the ring you are, the time remaining, the distancing between you and your opponent, when to be attacking/defending, and so on and so forth.

I would say that not all of it is new, and any competitor will eventually develop their own sense about these situations, but Oliva Sensei has taken it as far as to connect all the concepts together to produce a plan to win.

Despite the fact that I thought the kids session was better (lots of great drills and timing training), Oliva Sensei stressed that those are foundational skills and he's actually interested in teaching teachers the concept of tactics, which are the next level from just having ability.

Either way, it was a great seminar hampered only by the fact that I got stepped on in a really weird way by one of the guys I was practicing with. I now have a cut under the nail of my left big toe, which isn't a huge deal except for the fact that I can barely walk (which I guess is a big deal haha)....... it doesn't hurt if I don't move, I can put weight on it (so it's not broken), but it's annoying nonetheless....... I had hoped to be back training by next week, but I just want to walk normally right now haha........

I guess my toe-bougyo needs a bit of work.........

Yay karate!! =P.......

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"iro iro" which is "various" and this past week was indeed filled with "iro iro" activities.

Kita-ku Tournament

Just like last year, I went to the "Kita-ku" Karate Tournament, which is one of the oldest karate tournaments in Tokyo still running. Kita-ku is the northern region of Japan and the school I work at is conveniently a part of this, so naturally the karate club was competing. All the students competed in individual kumite and there was a Seiritsu grad (past members of anything are affectionately known as OB's, or "old boys") who entered individual kata and helped comprise the kumite team.

See above was a board breaking demo. The sensei who's arm just had a board broken over it (R side) is some 75 years old...... intense.......

Kuruucrew

On Friday night, one of my roomates was going to what he called an "experimental noise" concert. What the heck, I figured, and I went along.

The club itself played a lot of techno, but not trance or house or anything like that....... it was really bass heavy and at times strangely arrhythmic. I'm sure there's a name for the genre, but I have no idea what it is. Dancing, apparently, consisted of swaying like zombies to the "beat"..... very interesting, to say the least......

The band that was playing is called Kuruucrew, a 5-man band that play what I would considered something that borders between ultra-heavy metal and flat out noise. There was a drummer, a guitarist, a bass guitarist, a saxophone player, and a guy who played a flourescent light tube.... and I'm not joking.....

I have yet to figure out how he "plays" it, but it almost looks like he had a mic hooked up to it and then he just turns the tube on and off to generate that characteristic buzzing noise. Then he feeds the noise through some reverb pedals to make............ "music". I've also yet to figure out how he manages to turn it on and off so consistently because anytime I turn on flourescent lights, they tend to flick randomly for a few seconds before fully turning on.......... oh well haha....

As for the band, it borders on simple loud noises atop a 130+bpm beat. Upon a background of constant guitar feedback and nearly constant bass strumming and bass drumming is that light tube "guitar", almost random cymbal crashes, and that saxophone (also mic'd through reverb pedals) which I could never hear.

Beyond that, they had 3 dancers (one male, one female, one yet-to-be-determined) in skin-coloured leotards and green Hawaiian grass skirts pole dancing. They also pulled stockings over their face like bank robbers. Dancing consisted of....... anything....... from spastic jogging-in-place to interpretive arm waving...... and moshing from the audience at the front......... I didn't partake =P.....

The band played a 30min set which was, for me, an.............. experience, let's say =P....

Tokyo Motor Week

Now that the Tokyo Motor Show has returned to its biennial roots, there isn't any big car show until the Tokyo Auto Salon next January. In response to this, the Japan Automobile Manufacturer's Association (JAMA) held the Tokyo Motor Week. Held in three locations, the motor week gave the public a chance to see new models from various Japanese manufacturers, last week in Yokohama and Odaiba, and this weekend in Roppongi.

It's set up like those "display shows" often seen in malls, where the cars are more like adding to the action rather than being the action itself.

I went to the one in Roppongi, held in the rather high-end Tokyo Midtown shopping complex.

Unforunately, despite the ads claiming to appeal to younger audiences with live DJ's and guest appearances, the show didn't offer much. In fact, each "display" was a single car. And, seeing as "average" people tend not to buy cars with "uncomfortable" sport suspension, "cramped" sporty interiors, and "noisy" performance engines, it was mildy interesting at best. They did have an Evo X, but that's not anything to get that worked up over.

There were, however, a couple other neat things.......

Such as these....... whatever they are. I know they're two back-halves of a Nissan Cube welded together. I have no idea what they're for though.

And this.....

Yes, that is really the dash for the Toyota Crown Hybrid. Yes, it's a complete LCD screen, capable of displaying...... well...... anything. Including a picture of the car when you get in. Also note the little unit on top of the steering column. That houses a sensor that constantly monitors the driver's eyes in case the driver is shoulder checking (ie- not looking forward) and the car bears down on some obstacle. It then beeps at you to warn you about the impending crash.... =P

The last thing I'd like to mention is that the Ritz-Carlton Tokyo is connected to this shopping complex, and the driveway of the hotel had cars worth more than the entire show including a V-10 Audi S8 and a long wheelbase Rolls-Royce Phantom.......

Tomorrow I'm off to a karate seminar led by Antonio Oliva Sensei, the Spanish National Team Kumite Coach and coach of "iro iro" karate world champions. He's in town for the World Karate Federation World Championships next weekend. And you can be sure there'll more to read about that next week =)......

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"anshin" which is relief or peace of mind. And due to popular demand (at least, what I perceived to be popular demand haha), I've found a few more posters from the Tokyo Metro's "Peace of Mind/Courtesy" posters which are currently being updated monthly.

Please do it in the yard............ right.... If I may be honest, I've never EVER seen anyone practice golf swings with their wet umbrella. Either that, or we're supposed to practice our umbrella-golf swings in our yard and not on the train platform lest our oversized-dandruff dirties the trenchcoat of a double-monacle'd gormless old man..... this poster also fails to address that fact that nearly everyone in Japan is not fortunate enough to have a yard to fling their dandruff around....... but that kid sure does have good technique- see how his coat flies from the force of his hip rotation.......

This is my personal favourite. Please do it at the beach!! I can assure you no one dives for trains like that. I can also assure you no one uses the breaststroke to try and catch the train. I mean, the relevance of this picture is stretching it a bit......

The poor fellow also seems to have a similar dandruff problem AND lo...... it's the same creepy old man stalking all these train miscreants. Maybe they should make a poster for the man to warn people about stalking......

"Please do it from behind a telescope" or something..........

Oh wells......

In other news, this week is the north-Tokyo tournament which Seiritsu is entered in. And next week is the first time in 31 years that the World Karate Championships will be held in Tokyo.

The World Karate Championships are the highest level of karate competition in the world (well, until karate gets into the Olympics). Lasting from Nov 13-16, I've been signed up as a volunteer translator (yeah, who knew haha) for the last two days, so hopefully that'll mean I can be on the floor, next to the rings watching all the action.

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"gyaku" which is reverse/opposite. It can mean that in both the material sense (like the opposite end of something) or the immaterial sense (like a concept). In fact, gyakusetsu means paradox, with two contradicting ideas within one proposed situation.

白水修養会 (Shiramizu Shūyōkai) - My home away from home

[Picture courtesy of Arakawa Sensei's blog]

In karate, the most common use is in the term, gyakuzuki, which is a reverse punch. A reverse punch is a punch off the non-leading hand. If, for example, I'm in a stance with my left foot forward, my right punch is my gyakuzuki.

Gyakuzuki's are particularly useful for quite a few reasons. One being that because the distance it travels is further than that of the lead hand, it can hit harder. Tying into that, throwing a gyakuzuki requires the rotation of the hip which not only adds to that power, but coupled with a lunge, can actually reach very far. The arm also helps with balance as you lunge into a deep gyakuzuki. Lastly, they're great for counter-punches because you can use your lead hand to parry an attack and dive in with the reverse punch.

As you might have guessed from the picture, I bring all THIS up because there was another tournament this past Sunday- the Sugito Tournament. Sugito, if you remember, is the city that I lived in for a year and is home to Shiramizu. The Sugito tournament wasn't particularly huge, but there was a good turnout by the dojos in the neighbouring cities and it's also a great place for kids to earn some competition experience since the level is a bit more forgiving.

Me, Carl (the current intern), and Amy (his fiance)

Having said that, my results were a bit "gyaku" as well. As usual, kata went in the morning and unfortunately, I didn't do as well as I should have. I lost the round and was rather not happy with myself about that. Still needs more work, as always haha..... oh well........ after lunch, I focussed on warming up for kumite...

That me (blue) ~not~ losing three points (kicks to the head are worth 3 points).

My kumite match was surprising too because, for the first time, I won a match. I'm not afraid to admit that kumite is not my strength but it can be rather fun (unless you get injured haha)... so to win a match was rather........ liberating, let's say, since it's the first rung on the ladder.

I ended up in the final round for my kumite division against Carl, who is a self-proclaimed kumite lover. I didn't beat him but I suppose that means I got second place, which is fine with me haha.......

Aside from that, my weekend was rather uneventful. This coming week is........ hmm.....

Oh, I'll be training at Arakawa Toru Sensei's dojo. Arakawa Toru Sensei (no relation to Arakawa Takamasa Sensei from Shiramizu) is one of the last few Wado-ryu Sensei to have trained directly with the style's founder, Otsuka Sensei, for a lengthy period of time and Arakawa Toru Sensei is actually creditted with helping spread Wado-ryu and karate itself to various parts of the world.

On the weekend will be my roommates birthday party and next Monday will be the Kita-ku (Tokyo's northern region) tournament. So.... busy busy =D...... til then......

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"jidou" which means automatic. Certainly Japan is no stranger to automated-ness what with vending machines (jidohanbaiki) or a car (jidosha). Cars are also referred to as "kuruma" but..... whatever......

And since it's been a while since I've talked about cars, I thought I'd throw in a few things I managed to see this past two weeks.

I guess I'll start off with a week ago, when I was in Shibuya. I saw this...

... the Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano. Now, I'm the first to admit, this isn't exactly a triumph of styling cues. In fact, I struggle to think of any new Ferrari in the past 5 years that I would call truly "beautiful". Aggressive maybe, but aesthetically pleasing?? Not compared to their cars from yore. A point seemingly proven by the fact that I was the only one even remotely concerned that it was even there, the black stallion by itself on the side of the road.

It certainly doesn't look like most other cars on the road, but perhaps the appeal of the car is more because "it's a Ferrari" rather than its actual styling. But having said that, the mechanicals are worth mentioning, with its massive 6.0-litre 611bhp V12 up front, transaxle gearbox in the back, and electronically controlled dampers.

On a slightly related note, if you ever see a truly expensive car in Tokyo (and the 599 GTB is worth more than $250,000), the license plate will almost always be registered to an address in Shinagawa, there being where all the truly rich people live.

Moving on.......

On Wednesday I saw this......

... the TVR Tamora. This was almost a better sight than the Ferrari because these British TVR's were sold in America only for a very short period of time, mostly because selling overseas nearly caused them to go bankrupt. In fact, I've never seen a TVR (or heard of anyone seeing a TVR) in Vancouver so seeing on in Tokyo was truly rare. TVR is a British-based car firm known for building very light, very fast, usually scary, and often unreliable sports cars. They really do market to a niche crowd but in doing so, they often find themselves some very devoted owners.

The Tamora weighed in at a very light 2500lbs but came stocked with a 3.6-litre 350bhp inline-6. For reference, that's 100lbs lighter than my Integra but with twice the power.

Tamora is, apparently, the Queen of the Goths.....................

Next up....

...the McLaren MP4-23, the current McLaren-Mercedes F1 challenger. I suppose this is just cool in that it's rare to see an F1 car and even more rare that it's not just some mock-up with no engine.

Seeing as the Japanese Grand Prix was last weekend, it seemed fitting that Mercedes put one on display. These things are amazing to look at simply because of the detail that go into designing them. Every edge and shape is designed purely for speed and that's cool......

I should point out that the picture was taken inside Shinagawa station. As if you needed more proof that Shinagawa is where the money is...

and lastly, on Monday I finally made a stop by this...

... the Audi Forum, in Tokyo. Found a 10-min walk from Harajuku station, this building, also known as The Iceberg, houses an Audi dealership on the first two floors, a hair salon (???) on the third floor, some kind of kids-science-discovery place on the 4th floor, and a very fancy restaurant-type area for wedding receptions and such on the upper floors.

Although my picture doesn't really do it justice, it's really a very interesting piece of architecture, perhaps simply because it different from all the buildings surrounding it. It's one of those things that looks like it was built just for the sake of building it. It's not like those edges make for more floor space or help it dissipate earthquake of typhoon energy.

The inside is appropriately classy and the Audi showroom had some appropriately expensive cars on display. Some noteable ones include the diesel-V12 Q7, the $200,000 V10-powered S8, and my personal favourite, the RS4 Avant.

They also had an R8 which, despite how great it is, I still find to be visually stunted from some angles......

Not that I'm judgemental or anything =P haha.....

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"kondeiru". It's a very appropriate word meaning "crowded", and this weekend, I went to the Tokyo Game Show 2008 which, as you can imagine, was extremely crowded.

The Game Show is a show about...... games.... It's a gigantic convention hall that remains half-lit on the inside so that thousands of LCD TV's can show off the latest and coming video games so companies like EA, Konami, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sega, and Tecmo (to name but a few) can increase their share of the video game market in Japan, worth some 238.8 billion yen (some $2.3 billion CAD) last year.

And despite the nature of video games, it was something every company took seriously, spending lots of money on booth design, brochures, staff, and props. In fact, there were actually very few children there since, as might be obvious, the video game market in Japan has just as many adult players as there are children, if not more. Part of that is, I suppose, due to how much time people spend on trains, which means the portable game market (whether on handheld systems or on phones) is huge, evidenced by the fact that major cell phone providers had displays at show as well.

Beyond that were the chances to try out lots of games (provided you stood your way through line-ups as long as TWO HOURS), see lots of people dressed up in costumes, see lots of unpaid fans dress up in even more complicated costumes standing outside, and, this being Japan, watch throngs of cameramen move from booth-girl to booth-girl.

I went with my roommate, his girlfriend, and a few of this co-workers (who all work as computer engineers) and while it was fun, I didn't find it as satisfying as the auto shows. While that might seem like a pointless statement to make, coming from me, the reason I say that is because at auto shows, no one expects to be able to drive the cars. The point of the show is simply to be able to have a chance to see the cars in person. After that, information is available if you want it.

At a game show, everyone wants to try out all the wares. I wanted to try GT5 but there was a 2-hr line-up for that game since everyone else wanted to as well. And likewise with all the other booths. So, in the end, it's slightly unsatisfying in that you end up wandering around looking at stuff when what you really want to do is play the games.

Having said that, there was still some really great stuff. I particularly liked the section of the show that had games from computer programming or design schools. These student-made games rarely had lines to try them and while some of them really weren't that great ("Let's jump from cloud to cloud" or "Let's stomp stick-figure zombies"), some were designed with really fresh thinking coming from the next generation of video game designers.

Yes, someone dressed as a robot. No, he wasn't part of the event.

The other interesting part of the show was Konami's Metal Gear Solid Online World Championship Final Round. Having qualified from all over the world, individuals and teams all met to determine who was the best...... umm....... Metal Gear Solid Online....... Soldier...... At any rate, I only watched the individual match which was pretty interesting, especially with the energetic announcer shouting out "HEADSHOT!!" every so often. Well, technically, he said "HEADDO-SHOTTO!!" but anyway....... Perhaps unsurprisingly, the title of world's best MGS Online gamer went to some 13-yr old kid from Japan. At least 4th place went to a Canadian soooooo....... I guess Canada has the 4th best MGS Online gamer..... yeah!!

Oh...... and I took a picture with Bomberman....... yeah!!!